by Willa Cather
Thea Kronborg, daughter of a minister in a small Colorado town, is
discovered by the music teacher, a drunken German fellow, to have a rare
gift. Sponsored by Archie, the town doctor and family friend, and Ray, a
railroad man who intends to marry her but is killed, she travels to
Chicago, then New Mexico, meeting more and more cosmopolitan people,
until, at last, she is a star of the opera stage, and like a star
radiant and very distant.
I found this book, at 420+ pages, quite
a chore to get through. The character of Thea was utterly
unsympathetic; her self-absorption even as a nobody is insufferable, and
after she's a star, her melodramatic requirements are equally odious.
The prose is tedious, as Cather fawns on her character, making her
charismatic in the eyes of everyone except the reader. Actually, Thea is
surrounded by sympathetic characters who lead interesting lives and are
open, hearty, and engaging, but they all orbit around her, and Cather
gives no reason for the reader to like her. Altogether a boring book,
full of light and song but signifying nothing.
two stars
No comments:
Post a Comment